Sweeter Than Fiction by Taylor Swift Tutorial/Lesson
Sweeter Than Fiction
Gsus4, Dsus4, Csus, Cadd9, A, E, F#m
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Video transcript
hi my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play Taylor Swift's brand new song called Sweeter Than Fiction so stay tuned if this is something that you want to learn hit the ground so this song is relatively easy there's not too many chords however she does do a key change whenever she does the chorus so if you do the key change you're going to have to know a few more chords than if you ignore the key change so in this tutorial I'm going to show you guys both versions one when you do change the chord so you change the key and then one where you stay in the same key I forgot to mention to play this song in the same key Taylor Swift sings it in you're going to need to put your C on the fourth fret so 1 2 3 4 um if you don't have a capo you can remove it and play these exact same chords and it'll still work fine but you have to realize you're going to be singing it in a little bit of a lower key than Taylor Swift and also another piece of advice I have is that if you want to play this song without the key changes where you just use the gcd pattern and you don't want to play like the B chords and stuff you might want to raise your Capo a fret so that you can sing in the same key as Taylor Swift so why don't we go ahead and start and I will show you the chords that you will need to know prove so the first chord you need to know to play this song is G suspended which looks like this and sounds like this from here you're going to need to know D supended which looks like this and sounds like this remember the x's mean not to play that string so for this chord we're not going to be playing these top two strings for from here we're going to go to C suspended which looks like this and sounds like this now I know this chord is a little bit more of an unfamiliar territory for most people so an alternate chord you can use instead of C suspended would be C add9 which looks like this and sounds like this so throughout this tutorial you can either play C suspended or C add9 they sound very similar so you can just choose whichever one is easiest for you now if you want to play the version without any key changes those are the only chords you need to know and they're all pretty simple however if you do want to follow Taylor Swiss version and do the key changes there are a couple more chords you need to know and I'll go ahead and show you what those are so the first one is a which looks like this and sounds like this then you need to know e which looks like this and sounds like this and the last chord you need to know is FSH minor and this is one of those barred chords so it's one of those you might have to practice a little bit more to be to get good at but it looks like this and it sounds like this so why don't you you guys practice through those chords and decide um which kind of se you want to use and all that kind of stuff and when you get used to the way that they feel and you remember where your fingers go and you can transition between them pretty easily then go ahead and move on and I'm going to show you guys some strumming patterns that you can use with this song look at I'll be one of the many so because this song is rather fast I have mostly strumming patterns to show you guys but I did throw in one picking pattern for all of you guys who are really adamant about picking but um let's go ahead and start off with a basic practice pattern that you can use so this is just strumming one time on each chord on the downbeat and you just want to kind of do this so that you know where to transition your chords and maybe to practice singing with it and things like that so why don't we go ahead and do an example with our practice pattern hit the ground hit the ground oh oh only sound only sound that you hear is no you never saw it coming slipped when you started running and now you've come I I I so you want to just continue that through the entire song Just strum one time on each chord change and um when you're comfortable with that then we can jump into some more of the complicated strumming patterns that I have so let's go ahead and start with strumming pattern one in this one it's going to be focusing more on the rests than it is on the actual strumming pattern and I'll tell you what I mean by that a lot of times when you have a fun Rhythm to do when you're playing guitar it's actually the resting that kind of makes it more upbeat than when you're just strumming along without stopping sometimes those rests can give you more of an upbeat feel so strumming pattern one is this so you can see there what I'm doing is I'm strumming it once but then I'm kind of stopping the strings as they're ringing and what I'm doing is I'm just kind of holding my right hand in a fist and just kind of slapping the strings it makes this kind of cool um percussion sound and I think that it sounds really good with this song and you can hear the Rhythm that it creates by slapping your strings so we're going to play this by playing each chord twice they're all going to be downstrokes and between each downstroke we're just going to add that little bit of a palm mute but I guess this one is more of a fist mute but um that's how we're going to play it so put your G chord on and we're just going to play downstroke mute downstroke mute okay so that would be the same pattern throughout the entire song or you can of course mix and match patterns that I will show you later but let's go ahead and go through an example of how this strumming pattern sounds with the song hit the ground hit the ground hit the ground oh oh only sound only sound that you hear is no you never saw it coming slipped when you started running and now you've come UND it I I so if you understand that pattern and you think it's a little bit boring we can go straight into this pattern two from here it's very similar to the first one but we're going to add a little bit more variation towards the end so um I'll play you an example of struming pattern two so as you can see I'm still doing the whole fist muting action with my right hand in this pattern but we're reducing it to only one time so this is our strumming pattern for pattern two what we're going to do is go ahead and put your G chord on you're going to play it once on a downstroke and then of course fist mute it and then this time when you play it down again instead of fist muting it again you're just going to let it ring so let's practice that down mute down down mute down so once you get that pattern down we can add in the rest of the up down up section so let's do it together it would be down mute down up down up down mute down up down up so just to reiterate you would play this entire pattern through for each chord again you could play this pattern throughout the entire song and it would sound great or you could mix it with the first pattern or even the practice pattern but let's go ahead and go through an example of how this song would sound if we just used strumming pattern to hit the ground the the ground only sound only sound that you hear is no you never saw it coming s when started running and now you've come I okay so the third pattern I have to show you guys is more percussive and um what I mean by that is there's just a little bit more of a pushing driving Rhythm to it so the way we're going to play this is we're going to break up eight beats into two groups of three and one group of two if you've watched my other tutorials you may be familiar with this but I think that this pattern mixes really well with this song so go ahead and put your g- chord on what we're going to do is we're going to play this entire eight beats on our G chord so 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 these are all going to be played as downstrokes to give it more of that percussive feeling 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 you might notice though that it's a little bit boring because it just all sounds the same and if you play through without any sort of driving Rhythm it's just going to sound a little bit ringing throughout the entire song So a way we can fix that is we can emphasize certain beats so by breaking up our beats into groups of three and then one group of two if we emphasize each first beat it gives us a little bit more of a rhythm so 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 so now we have a bit of a rhythm going and it's a driving force that'll be really great for all of the verses but another thing that we can add to this to make it even more percussive is to do a little bit of a palm mute as we play so for this I'm resting the side of my playing hand PM onto all six strings so now when I play they're kind of more muted it's not the most beautiful sound in the world I know but if you keep playing through it and you kind of speed it up it sounds really cool one thing I would suggest though is that for this pattern it's probably better if you use a pick so that you can kind of hear the Rhythm More 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 so you would play this through the entire song and of course you would play this entire pattern through for each chord so g d c g so why don't we go ahead and play through an example of what this strumming pattern sounds like with this song hit the ground hit the ground hit the ground oh oh only sound sound that you he is no you never saw it coming slipped when you started running and now you come and when they call your name and they put your picture in a frame so you guys are doing great and I just showed you guys all the strumming patterns that I came up with for this song of course I did promise you guys a picking pattern as well so we'll go ahead and go through that right now so this is the picking pattern what we're going to do is go ahead and put your G chord on which is the start of the song and we're going to take these three fingers and we're going to play the top three strings 3 2 1 so with your pointer finger you're going to be playing the G string and you just kind of pick that once with your pointer with your middle finger you're going to be picking the B string and then with your ring finger you're going to be picking the top E string so we have g b e or if you're more of a numbers person 3 2 1 now since we're on the G chord we're going to use our thumb to play the bottom note in each of these chords so for G the sixth string is the bottom note or the low E string so we're going to add that to our 3 2 1 so we're going to play 6 3 2 1 try that again 6 3 2 2 1 and that's the entire picking pattern 6 3 2 1 6 3 2 1 and it would be the same for every other chord so let's go ahead and switch to D in D the fourth string is the lowest string so now you're going to use your thumb to play the fourth string but these three fingers are going to stay the same on the top three strings so we have 4 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 so going from G to D we have 6 3 2 1 and then 4 3 2 1 let's go ahead and move on we have C in C the lowest string is the fifth string so again you're going to use your thumb to play the fifth string but these three are going to stay on the top three so we have 5 3 2 1 5 3 2 1 so if you're interested in using a picking pattern for this song I would suggest maybe slowing down the song as a whole and doing it more of like an acoustic slower version because I think that would sound really pretty and if you did that then you would play this whole pattern through twice for each chord so it would be g d d c g so why don't we go ahead and go through an example of what that would sound like if you wanted to slow down the song and do a picking pattern hit the ground hit the ground hit the ground only sound only sound that he is no you never saw it coming spped when you started running and now you've come undone and I I I so again any of these strumming or picking patterns would be really great to play with this song I would suggest if you master all of them to go back and forth between two or three or maybe even all four of these patterns and that way you can kind of spice up your playing and make the song a little bit more interesting by switching up which strumming pattern you use for which part This Life Is Sweeter Than Fiction so now that you've practiced your chords and your strumming and your picking we can go ahead and put all of those elements together and play through the entire song I'll go ahead and show you guys what I'm going to be doing in my little mini cover and if you want to you can follow along with mine or of course you come up with any other strumming patterns or any put them in any other order that you like so the way that I would suggest playing this song would be to use pattern two for all of the choruses and then probably pattern three which is the more percussive driving force for all of the verses and then maybe slow down the uh bridge by using a picking pattern or something like that so why don't we go ahead and put all of these elements together and play through the entire song I'm going to go a little bit below Tempo just so we can all keep up and remember in this one I will be changing keys but if you stay tuned I'll go ahead and play through it without changing Keys just so you know what that sounds like as well someday you won't remember this pain you thought would last forever and ever Sweeter Than Fiction by Taylor sft hit the ground hit the ground hit the ground oh oh only sound only sound that you hear is no you never saw it coming slipped when you started run and now you've come I I I I seen you fall seen you crawl on your knees a seen you lost in a crowd seen your colors fade wish I could make it better someday you won't remember this pain you thought would last forever and ever there you'll stand 10 ft tall I will say I knew it all along your eyes wider than distance This Life Is Sweeter Than Fiction just a shot just a shot in the dark oh all you got all you got all you shattered hopes they never saw it coming you hit the ground running and now you're on to something I I I say what a side what a side when the light came on prove me right prove me right when you prove them wrong and in this perfect weather it's like we don't remember the rain we thought would last forever and ever there you'll stand 10 ft t I will say I knew it all of all your eyes wider than distance This Life Is Sweeter Than Fiction there you'll stand next to me all at once the rest is history your eyes wider than distance this life is sweeter than fix I'll be one of the men saying look at you now look at you now oh now I'll be one of the many saying you made us proud oh proud I'll be one of the many saying look at you now look at you now oh now I'll be one of the many saying you made us proud you made us proud oh proud and when they call your name and they put your picture in a frame you know that I'll be there time and again cuz I loved you when when you hit the ground hit the ground oh oh only sound that you heard was no now in this perfect weather it's like we don't remember the rain we thought would last forever ever there you'll stand 10 ft tall I will say I knew it all along your eyes water than distance This Life Is Sweeter Than Fiction there you'll stand next to me all at once the rest is history your eyes wider than distance This Life Is Sweeter Than Fiction Sweeter Than Fiction sweeter yeah sweeter fiction so if you guys are having a little bit of trouble playing the FSH minor chord which is a Bard chord and you would rather just play the entire song using the same chords and without a key change then this is going to be how you would play it we'll go ahead and show the pattern right here and the secret is to remain on this pattern the entire time even during the chorus so instead of doing a key chain you're just going to keep these same chords so I'll show you an example of what it sounds like when you keep this exact same pattern through the entire song for the verses and the chorus hit the ground hit the ground hit the ground oh oh only sound only sound that you hear is no you never saw it coming so when you started running and now you've come and done it I I I I seen you fall seen you crawl on your knees seen you lost in a crowd seen your colors fade wish I could make it better someday you won't remember this pain you thought would last forever ever there you'll Stand 10t Tall I will say I knew it all along your eyes wider than this life is sweer Than Fiction there you'll stand next to me all at once the rest is history your eyes wider than distance this life fiction and of course this same pattern can be used for the middle Bridge part as well I'll be one of the saying look at you now look at you now now I'll be one of the many saying you made us proud you made us proud oh proud I'll be one of the men he saying look at you now look at you now now I'll be one of the many saying you made us proud you made us proud proud and when they call your name and they put your picture in a frame you know that I'll be there time and again cuz I Lov you so that was my tutorial on how to play sweeter than fix by Taylor Swift I hope that you liked it and I hope that you found it helpful even if it was just a little bit um for all of you guys who are my subscribers and of course all of you who are watching this right now who have yet to subscribe I wanted to throw in a giveaway to show you guys how much I appreciate all of your views and support and stuff so the first thing I want to give away is this guitar pick holder um and of course I'll throw in a couple of guitar picks in there for you to get your collection started but this is really great for all of you guys who have a million guitar picks just lying around and have no place to keep them um it's just really useful because it's portable and you can keep it in your guitar case and things like that and so um yeah all you have to do is push this in and then put your guitar pcks in so I will throw that in for you guys along with a couple of guitar pcks the second thing I wanted to give away is this teal turquoise greenish blue guitar strap I don't know what color you want to call it but um this is just your basic guitar strap it's really useful for or whenever you want to do a performance and you have to stand up and hold your guitar in position so that you can play those chords and everything so I wanted to throw this in there as well and then the last thing I wanted to give you guys cuz I'm assuming if you're watching this right now you are probably a Taylor Swift fan so I wanted to throw in her red album Taylor Swift um piano vocal guitar book so pretty much what this is it goes through every song in her red album and on the bottom it gives you the piano transcription so that if you're a Pianist you can play through all of her songs and they'll sound beautiful um on top of each one it has the chords so if you're a guitarist you can read these chords and it even shows you the fingering that you need to use in order to play them so you can use this book to learn any song on guitar that I haven't uploaded a tutorial for so this will be useful for that and of course it has all the lyrics lyrics and everything written out as well as the Rhythm and the notes so if you're a singer you can sing along with um your accompaniment so yeah I wanted to throw these in so if you want to win some of these guitar goodies all you have to do is subscribe to my channel and um leave a comment below and I promise you won't regret subscribing because I do lots of Guitar tutorials for you guys and um yeah so go ahead hit that subscribe button don't be afraid and leave a comment below and of course you can follow me on my Twitter Instagram and my Facebook if you want to be more interactive with me my Facebook is where I do lots of polls of what songs you guys want tutorials for next and things like that my Twitter is just if you have quick questions that you want to ask me I usually check my Twitter pretty often so I can answer those for you as soon as I see them and then uh my Instagram is just kind of to follow me in my everyday life and of course I also do a couple of surprise Instagram giveaways now and then so make sure to follow me on those social media sites if you'd like to and I have links to all of my social media down in the description box below but um mostly just comment below and subscribe and I will enter you in for this guitar giveaway so thanks again so much for watching my tutorial again I hope that it helped you and um I will see you guys in my next one bye sweet yeah sweeter sweeter than Fiction